Reality and Fiction in Contemporary Television: The Case of Skam

Abstract

Skam, a Norwegian television series, uses social media accounts that purport to represent the world of the characters to integrate the drama of the series with the lived reality of the audience. This makes for a unique aesthetic experience that enquires into the role that social media plays in the lives of young people in the Western world, and how the dominance of this mode of interaction forces a reevaluation of our understanding of reality and fiction.

Media narratives, agonistic deliberation, and Skam: An analysis of how young people communicate in digital spaces

“…First and foremost, media scholars have analysed and discussed the innovative narrative structure of the show, often in the context of Jenkins's term "transmedia storytelling" (e.g., Jenkins, 2006). The show's success is often linked to the way the story unfolded seemingly in real time through updates in social media and short clips on the official Skam blog (Andersen & Linkis, 2019;Bengtsson et al, 2018;Bom, 2018;Duggan, 2020;Lindtner & Dahl, 2019;Pearce, 2017;Rasmussen & Valtysson, 2017;Sundet, 2017Sundet, , 2020Sundet & Petersen, 2020). Moreover, studies of the show's format are sometimes interwoven with fandom studies.…”

‘SKAM Italiadid it again’. The multiple lives of a format adaptation from production to audience experience

“…It is the first national series to embrace the possibilities of convergence and transmedia storytelling throughout every phase, from planning to circulation, specifically targeting young audiences and the way they relate to and use mobile media. Although with some differences in the balance, in seasons one to three the Italian version of SKAM followed the original model of ‘online real-time drama’ (Sundet, 2021), which tries to recreate what we may call a ‘reality effect’ – that is a sense of closeness and immersion in everyday lives and experiences, through unannounced short clips, set at the same time of release, placing ‘the events within the frame of the audience’s experiential reality’ (Pierce, 2017: 156) (The fourth one adopts a traditional release, yet building on, and expanding, a previous fanbase).…”

“…The experiment soon also gained renown and audiences abroad, partially due to the pirated circulation of the original, but also due to seven local adaptations – in France, Germany, Spain, The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and the US. The NRK series has been studied for its narrative style (Andersen and Linkis, 2019; Pape, 2017; Pierce, 2017), its transmedia dimension (Bengtsson et al, 2018), its fan engagement (Kruger and Rustad, 2019; Petersen and Sundet, 2019; Rustad, 2018; Skarsbø Lindtner and Dahl, 2019) and its connection with NRK’s public service mission (Andersen Møller and Sundet Schanke, 2019; Sundet, 2020). The format’s incarnations in other languages and cultures have so far received less attention.…”

‘I’m just not gay-gay’: Exploring same-sex desire and sexual minority identity formation in SKAM and its Western European remakes

“…To blur the distinction between reality and fiction, they published scenes or sequences online throughout the week. The fact that the main characters had Instagram profiles, actively shared content and allowed comments and likes by audiences further enhanced the idea that these characters could be real (Pearce, 2017) and, according to Redvall (2018: 149), part of ‘a universe that felt alive outside of the audio-visual scenes’. Exceeding its initial target audience of 16-year-old girls, SKAM spoke to audiences in diverse gender and age categories and audiences across the globe, thanks to fan-subbed versions shared via Google Drive links or uploaded onto streaming platforms, such as YouTube, Vimeo and Dailymotion (Bengtsson et al, 2018; Sundet, 2020).…”